Justice Department releases FARA advisory opinions

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT RELEASES FARA ADVISORY OPINIONS: The Justice Department released today a batch of advisory opinions in cases involving the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The opinions, which date back to 2010, previously were not publicly disclosed. The information release comes after a 2016 recommendation from the department’s inspector general that the opinions be made publicly available. In a written statement, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said the release of public opinions was “to enhance compliance” and that ”by posting these advisory opinions, the Department of Justice is making clearer how we interpret some of FARA’s key provisions.”

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— Robert Kelner, a partner at Covington & Burling, described the decision as “a long time coming.” “FARA practitioners have been asking for years to see DOJ's secret trove of FARA advisory opinions,” Kelner wrote in an email. “This isn't by any means all of them, but it's a good start. DOJ is beginning to pull back the curtain." Dan Pickard, a partner at Wiley Rein, called the Justice Department’s release of the advisory opinions a “positive development.” But another lawyer who works on FARA issues said in an email that the Justice Department still has a ways to go, calling the release “fairly limited.” “They are to be commended for releasing these ~50 opinions, but we know that there are far more still being held back,” the lawyer wrote.

— Pickard said that he was not aware of any ties between the inspector general’s report or special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the Justice Department’s decision to release the advisory opinions. “I think it’s just a continuation of the registration unit trying to be as open and transparent as possible,” he said. Among the most common subjects of the advisory opinions, Pickard said, are exemptions for entities that perform certain legal work, exemptions for certain entities that are registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act and exemptions for certain commercial activity.

— Kelner predicted that the release of the opinions will accelerate the expansion of FARA practices at law firms, noting that at the moment, “there are probably fewer than a dozen lawyers in the whole country who are true FARA experts.”

— Nearly a dozen of the advisory opinions released today had been sent since Paul Manafort was indicted in October for failing to register as a foreign agent, among other charges. The case generated nervousness on K Street and seems to have driven some companies to make sure they were complying with the letter of the law. One unnamed lobbying firm wrote to the Justice Department on Nov. 2, three days after the Manafort indictment was made public, asking whether it needed to registered as a foreign agent because one of its clients is a subsidiary of a public company that’s majority-owned by an unnamed foreign government. The Justice Department replied Jan. 5 that the lobbying firm could register under domestic lobbying rules — which are less onerous — rather than under FARA.

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MORE ABOUT THAT MCAFEE PAC: McAfee, the cybersecurity software company, registered as a PAC recently. In an interview with PI, Thomas Gann, chief public policy officer and head of government relations for McAfee, said that the PAC is likely to donate to candidates in the midterms, but that it’s focused more on the long term. Gann said that the PAC will donate to both Republicans and Democrats, with an eye toward candidates “who broadly speaking are focused on and interested in solving the big cybersecurity challenges that we all face as a country.”

— Among McAfee’s policy priorities are preventing hackers from taking advantage of new market innovations, increasing funding for cybersecurity research at universities and improving information sharing between the private sector and the government, Gann said. He described the PAC as part of the company’s efforts to rebuild its government affairs program, after it spun out of Intel last year.

Register for the Pro Summit: Join Pro subscribers, expert reporters and key decision-makers from the executive branch, federal agencies and Congress for a full day of incisive policy conversations on July 17. Speakers include: Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus; Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection; and others. Register today.

FORMER GIULIANI AIDES LOBBYING FOR QATAR: The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay spotted Thursday that two former aides to Rudy Giuliani, Tony Carbonetti and Chris Henick, have signed the Qatari government as a client through their firm, Blueprint Advisers. It’s the firm’s first foreign client. Carbonetti and Henick will “help open lines of communication with U.S. government and non-government organizations to strengthen U.S.-Qatar relations, to include Members of Congress and Congressional staff, Executive Branch officials and agency staff, as well as promoting economic development and investment opportunities,” according to the contract, which was filed with the Justice Department. The contract lasts a year and is worth $100,000 a month.

— Giuliani wouldn’t tell Markay whether he’d talked with Carbonetti or Henick since they started working for Qatar and suggested he reach out to Blueprint. “They know what’s appropriate to say,” Giuliani told The Daily Beast. Markay doesn’t appear to have gotten in touch with Blueprint, but PI did. Carbonetti declined in an interview to say exactly what Blueprint is doing for Qatar or if they’d talked with Giuliani. “They asked us to do some work that would require us to file FARA, so we did,” he said.

How can Washington help the financial well-being of future American retirees? Politico convened leading thinkers and policymakers to identify some solutions. Read the full report.Presented by Prudential

MAJOR TRUMP DONOR HELPED PRUITT PICK EPA SCIENCE ADVISORS: “A prominent GOP donor and President Donald Trump supporter helped EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt choose the head of the influential scientific body charged with reviewing EPA's regulations, according to newly released documents,” POLITICO’s Emily Holden and Anthony Adragna report. “Doug Deason, a Dallas businessman, submitted a list of names of candidates for Pruitt's Science Advisory Board in August that had been supplied by the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, on whose board he serves. Deason and his father, Darwin Deason, donated over $900,000 in 2016 alone to help elect Trump and other Republican candidates. His influence over the SAB appointments is the latest example of the high-level access that politically powerful conservatives have to the EPA administrator. Deason is known to be a friend of Pruitt's. Deason and his wife have also been donors to the Koch brothers' network of organizations that raise money for Republicans running for state and national office.” Full story.

SPEAKING OF THE EPA: CHEMICAL INDUSTRY GETS WIN UNDER TRUMP: “The Trump administration, after heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, is scaling back the way the federal government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals on the market, documents from the Environmental Protection Agency show,” TheNew York Times’ Eric Lipton reports. “Under a law passed by Congress during the final year of the Obama administration, the E.P.A. was required for the first time to evaluate hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals and determine if they should face new restrictions, or even be removed from the market. But as it moves forward reviewing the first batch of 10 chemicals, the E.P.A. has in most cases decided to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances’ presence in the air, the ground or water, according to more than 1,500 pages of documents released last week by the agency.

— “Instead, the agency will focus on possible harm caused by direct contact with a chemical in the workplace or elsewhere. The approach means that the improper disposal of chemicals — leading to the contamination of drinking water, for instance — will often not be a factor in deciding whether to restrict or ban them. The approach is a big victory for the chemical industry, which has repeatedly pressed the E.P.A. to narrow the scope of its risk evaluations. Nancy B. Beck, the Trump administration’s appointee to help oversee the E.P.A.’s toxic chemical unit, previously worked as an executive at the American Chemistry Council, one of the industry’s main lobbying groups.” Full story.

CHARLES KOCH FORCED BROTHER, DAVID, OUT OF THE FAMILY BUSINESS: Charles Koch forced his brother David Koch to retire from Koch Industries, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reports. “David Koch, who is seventy-eight and the wealthiest resident of Manhattan, is more socially prominent than his older brother. He is often chronicled on the social pages, having donated by his own estimate $1.2 billion to philanthropic causes, including many of New York City’s cultural, medical, and educational institutions, several of which bear his name. In contrast, Charles Koch, an eighty-two-year-old libertarian ideologue who continues to live in the brothers’ home town of Wichita, Kansas, has largely stayed outside of the limelight. But those familiar with the brothers suggest that although Charles is less well-known, he, not David, has long been the driving force behind both the phenomenal growth at Koch Industries and the duo’s ambitious political ventures.

— “Charles also appears to have dominated David’s decision to retire. According to two well-informed individuals close to the family, David, who has been in declining health for several years, had resisted resigning, but Charles forced him out. A business associate who declined to be identified, in order not to jeopardize his ties to the family, told [Mayer], ‘Charles pushed David out. It was done with a wink, and a nod, and a nudge.’ A second longtime family associate confirmed this, saying, ‘Charles had been pushing him out for quite some time. David kept resisting. It was bad. Charles took control.’” Full story.

FLYING IN: Members of the National Association of Manufacturers Executive Committee were in town Thursday. Among the people who spoke to them: Marc Short, White House director of legislative affairs, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Sens. Heidi Heitkamp(D-N.D.) and Mark Warner(D-Va.).

ON THE CALENDAR: A number of K Street types are on the host committee for St. Baldrick’s Foundation’s annual child cancer research fundraiser, which will be held Sunday afternoon at the Washington Golf & Country Club. They include Brett Loper of American Express; Ginger Loper of Loper Consulting; Katherine Lugar of the American Hotel & Lodging Association; Dave Lugar of the Lugar Hellmann Group;and Doug McGinn of the Herald Group.

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About The Author : Marianne LeVine

Marianne LeVine is a reporter at POLITICO who covers lobbying and co- authors POLITICO Influence. Prior to her stint on the lobbying beat, Marianne covered labor policy for POLITICO Pro, writing about regulations related to overtime pay, retirement advice and occupational health and safety. Her reporting in 2016 about domestic abuse allegations against President Donald Trump's first nominee for labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, was a key part of the debate surrounding his nomination, which he ultimately withdrew. Prior to working at POLITICO, Marianne was an intern in the Los Angeles Times' Washington, D.C. bureau.

She graduated from Stanford undergrad in 2013, with degrees in International Relations and French and completed Stanford's Graduate Program in Journalism in 2014.

About The Author : Theodoric Meyer

Theodoric Meyer covers lobbying for POLITICO and writes the POLITICO Influence newsletter. He previously covered the 2016 campaign for POLITICO and worked as a reporting fellow for ProPublica in New York. He was a lead reporter on ProPublica’s “After the Flood” series on the federal government’s troubled flood insurance program, which won the Deadline Club Award for Local Reporting. He’s a graduate of McGill University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.